She looked almost entirely herself.
Almost.
Her lips were yet kiss-swollen…her eyes yet overbright from the pleasure that had washed through her…pleasure that would yet be rippling through her veins…
Pleasure he’d brought her.
“We should get him before he legs it again.”
A smile curved her mouth, which his couldn’t help joining.
Then they were on the move, and in the matter of a minute, they caught up to Whitty, who took one look at them and made to bolt—except, this time, his legs were in no mood to obey.
“Oh, Ossie,” he said mournfully. “Why are you out to prosecute—” His face squinched in confusion. “Prosecute…” He held up a staying finger while he worked through the word he intended, then said, “Pro-se-cute me?”
Rhys took Whitty’s meaning all the same. “I’m not persecuting you, old man.”
“Then why are you chasing me all over town?” Whitty exclaimed.
“Because you keep running.”
“And whose fault is that?”
For a drunken sot, Whitty had him there.
Rhys couldn’t fault the logic.
“If you’ll just come?—”
“Wait a minute,” said Whitty. “Have you found…religion, Ossie? Is that what this is all about?”
An interesting question, that.
For, in an instant, Rhys knew exactly what sort of religion he’d found—The Church of Tilly Birdwell.
And he’d become a devout member overnight.
Of course, he couldn’t very well say that.
Whitty’s eyes went wide as saucers, as if he’d heard it, anyway. “You have.” He shook his head, in awe to the wonders this old world wrought. “Lord Rhys Osborne, reformed rake. Never thought I’d live to see it.”
Rhys snorted. “Let’s not get carried away.”
He had yet plenty of unreformed parts of himself carrying on.
Like the unreformed part of himself that had pleasured Tilly’s cunny and ached to do it again.
“All right now, Lord Whitty,” said Tilly, taking a step forward, “we’re going to catch our deaths out here. So, let’s continue this conversation somewhere warm, shall we?”
Whitty’s imploring brown eyes met Rhys’s. “Back to White’s, then?” They shifted to meet Tilly’s. “Brooks’s?”
“My flat,” said Rhys.
Whitty groaned as he allowed Rhys and Tilly to each take an arm. “I thought you would say that. But, by gads, I’ll not have a drop of tea.”
As last stands went, Rhys had heard worse.
Three abreast, they tottered one step forward, then another. Though their progress weebled and wobbled and, at times, lurched and listed, half an hour later, they found themselves staggering up the steps to Rhys’s first-floor flat on Bennet Street, then once inside, depositing Whitty onto the drawing room sofa.
